Summary

RLT to review 2d ed. of Variation and write an article on Pangenesis.

Discussion of "Survival of the Fittest".

Summary

Herbert Spencer invented the term "survival of the fittest". CD used it but found "natural selection" more convenient.

He has often spoken of natural selection’s destruction of individuals which do not come up to "proper standards of structure", which comes to nearly the same thing as RLT’s suggested distinction.

Summary

Is putting together a natural history book for intelligent children [The puzzle of life (1877)]; would like CD’s opinion on the project in general and on the completed first chapter in particular.

Summary

Supports AN’s idea [of a natural history book for children].

Summary

Comments on paper by HE [see 10328].

Summary

Regrowth of an amputated extra thumb.

Summary

Sends signed enclosure.

FG will hear of germination of peas in a few days.

Summary

Thanks RLT for his letter. CD took much trouble over his two cases [regrowth of amputated supernumerary digits, in Variation] but the evidence was shaky.

Summary

Discusses in detail how to prepare for experimental purposes a soil that lacks nutrients.

Summary

CD came to believe Drosera drew its nourishment from insects because it grows where no other plants survive. Doubts glands are modified stomata.

Suggests works by Grönland and Trécul.

Summary

Sends some cash to help WED with moving expenses.

Summary

Thanks for EAS’s paper, translated from its original German, Sur la formation et la division des cellules (Strasburger 1876a).

Summary

Sends advice on preparing and washing soil in preparation for CD’s experiments.

Summary

Recounts family trait of excessive orderliness

and the behaviour of his dog.

Summary

Insectivorous plants is out

and Climbing plants is at the printer’s.

He is now at work on the geological writings.

Thinks all of CD’s papers extremely interesting "for the spirit and the method".

Cites some misprints in Climbing plants.

Summary

"The longer I live the more I come to believe in inheritance. I have some ""orderlings"" in my own composition, and I wish I had transmitted more of it to my own offspring."

Summary

Thanks CD for copy of Variation in name of Anthropologische Gesellschaft, Munich.

Dr Born has demonstrated that all Batrachia and their relatives the Anura have six toes.

Sends short paper on intelligence of cephalopods ["Die Cephalopoden in der zoologischen Station des Dr Dohrn", Z. Wiss. Zool. 26 (1876): 1–23].

Summary

Thanks for copy of 2d ed. of Variation.

Summary

Glad to hear that [German edition of] Insectivorous plants is published.

Thanks for errata in Climbing plants [2d ed.].

Sends list [missing] of his papers, with those certainly not worth translating marked with a red line.

Reports on work in progress.

Summary

A difficulty with a passage in Coral reefs about "vertical thickness", which JVC thinks should read "horizontal extent".